A security system would fall into the category of critical. (at least in my opinion). So using an appliance you'd get from Amazon or BestBuy aren't business level systems.

Those are the consumer approach and are meant to last for a few years at best, and will operate horribly.

This type of workload, while intensive for the IOPS for 32 cameras would be ideal to be managed from a VM. You can backup the VM, and have the platform write directly to a dedicated NAS which has the IOPS for this purpose.

If your hypervisor has the performance (and storage capacity to spare) you could keep everything locally and you'd never have any issue. Besides maybe backup.

I vehemently avoid the appliance route. I can, with parts on hand, replace/repair a system at a site (we have 24) in never more than 1 day, usually several hours. We have a PC on the shelf to shove out when needed.

I was called by a former employee last year to look at an NVR appliance at her location (new job) because they couldn't connect to it. The ethernet port was borked. The device had a mainboard with everything soldered to it. No slots, nada, zip, nothing. The company that installed it said that they would gladly replace it for them for $2200 since they couldn't repair the one in service.

I use GeoVision (it was here when we began to install these) and they work fine. I have analog HikVision cameras mixed in feeding an 8 port video server made by GeoVision that connect via ethernet to the NVR without additional off brand licenses.

There are so many brands that recommending anything that you don't have experience with is hard. I'm sure that there are many here that would disagree, but poke and hope. There are many good brands and systems out there. I've used Pelco, Axis, HikVision and GeoVision. All are good, some are quite expensive.

For now i would prefer to use appliance NVR so its easy to dismantle if needed. I have experience here that i need to dismantle my VMs and send to headoffice before Irma hits the property. If that happens again, I do not want to add another sheet of instructions to dismantle and assemble another system.

For now i would prefer to use appliance NVR so its easy to dismantle if needed. I have experience here that i need to dismantle my VMs and send to headoffice before Irma hits the property. If that happens again, I do not want to add another sheet of instructions to dismantle and assemble another system.

For now i would prefer to use appliance NVR so its easy to dismantle if needed. I have experience here that i need to dismantle my VMs and send to headoffice before Irma hits the property. If that happens again, I do not want to add another sheet of instructions to dismantle and assemble another system.

It would just be a VM. Shutdown your hypervisor and take it with you.

last time, we left the CCTV up until the power loss to get footages as long as we can.

Hikvision NVR has 16 ports at the back. does the camera need to be directly connected to the ports? we have CCTV vlan and some of camera is passing via fiber and multiple switch hops.

I'm not sure where you're confused. BNC (analog over coax) goes to BNC. IP goes over the wire (ethernet). The appliance has an interface to configure your connected devices.

Sorry for noob question. Just want to make sure that the NVR's 16 network ports works as normal switch ports.

I honestly couldn't tell you as I've never dealt with a device that matches what you're describing.

While technically non-Ethernet switches are physically possible, they really don't exist on the market. Only Ethernet switching has ever really been a thing. So you are safe in that all switching is interchangeable.